


bright lights hide dark shadows

by NotSummer



Series: Vyirin Legacy [2]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Dubious Morality, F/F, Gen, Non-Graphic Violence, Rai is a terrible Jedi and a brilliant soldier, Religious Discussion, Revelations, Shadow of Revan, Yavin 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2019-01-05 23:06:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12199215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotSummer/pseuds/NotSummer
Summary: There's a narrative of the Hero of Tython: the valiant Knight, driving back the Dark while growing into a paragon of virtue.Nox meets the Hero on Yavin, who tramples all over Nox's preconceived notions with her usual class and grace (none).





	bright lights hide dark shadows

It’s a rude awakening for Ilia when Rai tosses her blade and cuts through the sleeping Massassi in their outpost. The blue blade dances through necks, leaving voids and whorls in the force where there once there was swirling eddies left by the dreams of living beings.

“I thought Jedi did not attack the unarmed.” Her voice wavers. This is something she would do, but- Rai, the battlemaster, the Jedi who wears trooper armor, looks just as serene as the Grandmaster as her lightsaber returns to her hand.

“If they wake as we slipped past and raised the alarm, we might not be able to get our people out in time,” she explains, with a tone of ‘You should know that’.

“I know that,” Ilia snaps, “But you’re a Jedi. You’re… you’re  _ good _ .”

Rai laughs. Loudly. She can, of course-  the guards are dead. “Nox, I am a terrible Jedi.”

“That’s true,” the Wrath interjects. Lord Wrath is sitting back on her feels above them in a tree branch, and she shares a soft teasing smile with Rai.

Rai’s smile slides back off her face, and she looks back at Ilia. “Nox…. There’s a reason I don’t get invited to Council meetings. Why… why I’m the one to lead the campaigns. Why I don’t get Padawans,” she finishes dryly. “I kill people. I don’t wait for my enemies to attack me. I don’t wait for them to rearm themselves before killing them, and I rarely negotiate. Waste of time. I have a war to win, not some… philosophical debate.” Disgust and scorn laces her words, and Ilia is staggered.

Jedi are  _ good _ . They’re supposed to be harbingers of peace and complacency and long negotiations and serene and honorable. “Victory at all costs, then,” Ilia states.

Rai turns to stare at her, and Ilia fights the urge to fidget under the Jedi Master’s frosty gaze. “Yes,” Rai says. “Better for the Light to win through any means necessary than to let the Dark reign over the galaxy. Better for me to tarnish my reputation than let the atrocities of the Sith reach Coruscant again.”

Ilia forgot she was standing with the Thronebreaker, the murderer of the Emperor, the Hero of Tython, the Prodigal Knight- Master Rai was a woman of many titles.

She is reminded. This is the General who took Corellia alongside Master Rey’dis who conquered the impenetrable Guardian Holds. This is the Knight who foiled some of the greatest Sith the Empire had produced.

She had seen the sly mischievous side when Rai had agreed to come along on their excursions. She had seen the warm and nurturing side as Rai gently rebuked her former Padawan, Carsen, about her stance.

Now she sees the more brutal side. The warrior.

It scares her, consumes her. Her rage is lacking as the group tears through the Massassi camp, freeing their lost Republic scouts. A Jedi Master turned Revanite was leading the Massassi, and Ilia inhales. So  _ that  _ was how the Massassi knew the tricks of these scouts.

Lord Wrath and Darth Nox don’t even get a chance to attack the Jedi. Rai leaps past them, the defending bastion turned into a whirlwind of furious blows. The speed and deflection of Soresu turn into the punishing blows of Djem So, and Wrath and Nox are foced to hang back. Rai leaves no openings for them to exploit. Even the Lord Wrath’s notorious speed is not enough.

The Jedi tries to parry, his yellow blade weaving skillfully, but he’s on the defensive, and the trail of corpses behind them are proof of Rai’s skill. 

Ilia realizes, suddenly, as she watches Rai pass by an opening in the weakening Jedi’s defenses that Rai is  _ playing _ with him. The Dark Side broils around her, scorching the ground as she twists, a complicated maneuver that few duelists can manage, knocking her opponent back even further with the powerful parrys.

Her opponent leaps backwards, out of her range, and then jumps back forward with an overhead lunge, and Rai does not bring up her blade to meet him.

Her hand lifts, clenches. The Jedi is caught by her neck in midair, his hands clenching as his throat as his air supply is cut off. The burn of the dark side turns to an icy creep; rage becomes cold icy calculation.

She pulls the Jedi’s saber of out his weakening grip as she prowls towards, and drops him, planting a foot on his chest, and igniting his blade, the light throwing a sickly shade of yellow onto his face as his eyes widen in terror.

His, “please,” is cut off as she kills him with his own lightsaber.

Ilia shivers. Rai was right- she was a terrible Jedi. Ilia… Ilia fears her.

She had figured Rai was a Jedi like all the others. She had thought Rai would hold to the Jedi sense of honor and peace. She had figured Rai would be merciful and gentle.

How wrong she had been.

The Dark ebbs, disappearing from Rai’s presence in the Force as the Light swells back to surround her. Rai’s face calms, once more a picture of serene certainty.

How curious, to wield both sides. Ilia studies Rai, who strides out of the hut the Jedi had hidden in and wraps an arm around a scout’s shoulders, preparing to aid him in the trek back to the Republic outpost. The Lord Wrath follows, tailing after her. The two speak, their voices lost to the buzzing in Ilia's montrals, and then erupt into laughter, as Ilia stands still in the center of the hut, feet still frozen to the ground.

She can’t use serenity and peace, but she reaches with that certainty that all Jedi seem to possess.

The Dark occupies her Force senses, a constant companion, but she reaches through it. The Light beckons, and she reaches out further. The light slithers through the opening in her mental walls, and for a second, she revels in the peace it brings. She’s felt nothing like this before.

Eventually, she slams her shield back up, the Light forced away and the Dark returning. Her sense of the Dark is still as strong as ever, and she pauses, considers the implications.

Later. For now, there’s Revan to fight.

**Author's Note:**

> Ilia is going to permanently reach for the Light one day and acheive Balance. But there's a hundred different choices she's going to face before then, and she's nowhere near redemption yet.


End file.
